News Group, the News International subsidiary that published the News of the World,  is about to take a significant chunk out of the £20 million compensation fund it prepared for victims of phone hacking after settling 19 cases.

Damages paid out to each claimant could range from £6,000 to more than £100,000 depending on the level of intrusion and the number of articles published by the now-defunct tabloid as a result.

The High Court today heard that many of the claims being pursued (36 of 58) had now been settled. Many of those to have come to terms with the publisher are celebrities but ordinary members of the public thrust into the limelight as victims of crime have also been compensated, including Sara Payne, the mother of murdered schoolgirl Sarah, and Shaun Russell, whose wife and daughter were killed in Kent in 1996.

Some details have been released, with News Group paying out £130,000 to the actor Jude Law, £50,000 to Labour MP Chris Bryant and £30,000 to Welsh Rugby player Gavin Henson.

Bindmans LLP lawyer Tamsin Allen, acting on behalf of many of the victims, said: “The claimants now have some clarity about what happened to them in the years between 2000 and 2005 and satisfaction that justice has finally been done.

“Many of them have wondered for years how tabloid newspapers were able to obtain secret personal information about them, even suspecting their closest friends and relatives.

“Lives have been severely affected by this cavalier approach to private information and the law.

“News Group’s misguided decision to defend claims aggressively made matters worse. News Group have finally started to see sense and agreed to apologise and to pay compensation and costs in the majority of the remaining claims.

“The Leveson Inquiry will, in time, reveal to the public the full extent of the perversion of good journalistic standards at the News of the World during the phone-hacking years.”

The expected settlements also include: ex-deputy prime minister Lord Prescott; former cavalry officer James Hewitt; former MP George Galloway; the actress Sadie Frost; footballer Ashley Cole; singer Dannii Minogue; Noel Gallagher’s ex-wife Meg Matthews; Jude Law’s personal assistant Ben Jackson; Christopher Shipman, the son of the mass murderer Harold Shipman; HJK, a member of the public who had a relationship with someone famous; and Labour MP Denis MacShane.

(Source: Press Gazette)

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